A breath of sanity on RU486

News from Hark
This photo appeared on the front page of The Australian newspaper today in a much larger size, but was not reproduced online. It shows four strong women who know exactly what they are doing.

I'm tempted to call them heroes, but they are more than that. (A hero is usually a man who has overcome the biological pack-mentality of his gender to act in the liberating interest of all of us.) These women are the future. A future in which no woman will be forced to yield to patriarchal stupidity.

From left to right: Fiona Nash (National Party), Judith Troeth (Liberal Party), Lyn Allison (Democrats) and Claire Moore (Labor). The photo was taken after yesterday's Senate vote removing Tony Abbott from his position as God's surrogate over what women can and can't do with their bodies. It is a stunning portrait and I'm still cheering.

The vote, on whether control of RU486 (the pill that would replace surgical abortion, also known as mifepristone) should be taken away from the Health Minister and given to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, passed easily, 45 votes to 28. Of the 28 who voted against it, 25 were men. 25 God-fearing yokels posing as ministers of the crown.

Even Amanda Vanstone had some choice comments during the lengthy debate:

"I would like the pro-life people to get another name because, frankly, that describes everybody in this place. I do not know anybody who is against life.

"If you can come to a view that there can be a just war, why can there never be a just abortion?

Vanstone also "blasted conservatives who oppose the use of birth control in Third World countries, saying she wanted to make them go to the funerals of children who die in poverty or AIDs victims." (this quote from Misha Schubert's "House on the Hill," The Age.)

Democrat senator Lynn Allison said, "It is galling listening to the men -- and it is mostly men -- who have such contempt for women who terminate unwanted pregnancies."What is it with right wing conservative Christian men and their hysteria over abortion? Listen to Barnaby Joyce, a certified nutter:

"Mankind comes unstuck when it fails to respect human life. Those deaths of those women that will happen must rest on those who decide tomorrow."

Matt Price quotes him as comparing championship for RU486 with support for fascism and slavery.

Bill Heffernan, Howard's bull-goose nutter, seconded Joyce's hysterics by saying, "Eventually euthanasia will be legalised in Australia … and guess what will happen? There will be (a) pill, and it will go to the TGA, not to knock over babies, but to knock over people."

Tony Abbott actually believes control should reside with him because the TGA is not accountable. Oh, and he is? Isn't he a member of the Howard Government where accountability means less than nothing? He may not have twigged, but the TGA might just have the expertise based on accountable evidence to better decide on the legality of RU486 than his expertise, which is based on really solid ground like the will of God.

John Howard, naturally, will vote with the nutters in the House next week.

These men represent just about everything that is wrong with the world. They act in a fog of ignorance, without the capacity to reflect on their beliefs. Perhaps that is their problem: they are believers. And their beliefs have imprisoned them. A belief stymies intellectual pursuit beyond the belief. (Talk to a born again Christian and you might as well be talking to a tape loop.) Their intellectual horizons are no wider than that of a fetus (a term they wilfully refuse to understand); no wonder they are so protective. Indeed, they squeal about the sanctity of life for the unborn, while condoning the slaughter of fully grown humans in Iraq and the psychological destruction of asylum seekers.

They are frightened of women who are not doormats. Look at any conservative wife and you see a meek, cardigan-wearing woman whose only use is to put meat and potatoes on the table. Or, even worse, a woman more vicious than Bill Heffernan. Nowhere in their patriarchal history have they shown the least respect for a woman's right to choose how to live her own life. This atavistic fear is conveniently channelled into the historical über-patriarchal religious view of women as nothing more than vessels to procreate more and more men.

These are men parading as responsible and accountable parliamentarians, but who in reality are only capable of parroting ideologies that are of no benefit to humanity. They are without qualifications, without character, without ethics, without dignity, without a conscience, and without a heart; in short, they are larvae.